LABOUR MPs who opposed Tory welfare cuts were vindicated yesterday by government figures confirming that they will deprive Britain’s poorest of billions of pounds.

In damning impact assessments, the Treasury came clean about the cost of policies within its Work and Welfare Reform Bill.
The assessments were published online just a day after the controversial Bill passed its second reading by 148 votes, despite opposition from principled MPs.

Labour rebel Geraint Davies told the Star: “This confirms that this is a sheriff of Nottingham budget.

“No amount of smoke and mirrors about a ‘national living wage’ can take away from the bitter truth that working families already feeling the pinch will be thrust into deepening poverty.”

Cuts to child tax credits alone will see families lose £1.9 billion collectively by 2020, government figures show.

By the end of the current parliament, the two-child cap on tax credits will have snatched £1.3 billion from 640,000 families, with an average loss of £21,187.

Removal of the £500-a-year “family element” will see 1,180 households lose £675 million.

Single parents — 90 per cent of whom are women — and ethnic minorities are “more likely” to be hit, according to the government analysis.

Single-parent families also account for more than half of those hit by the cut in the benefit cap to £20,000 — £23,000 in London.

Around 126,000 families will lose £480 million in 2020-21 — £63 a week on average.

Labour leadership candidate Andy Burnham admitted yesterday that the party had got itself into a “mess” over the issue.

He followed the whips’ instructions to abstain after Labour’s amendment fell but said he would “oppose this Bill outright” if elected leader.

Leftwinger Jeremy Corbyn was the only leadership candidate to vote against the Tory cuts. Asked whether he had helped “split” the party, he told Radio 4: “On the contrary, I think we’ve strengthened it because we’ve shown there are a lot of Labour MPs … deeply concerned about the levels of child poverty in our society.”